94% of Facebook users hate new design

The recent Facebook facelift is no news to most; the site has undergone its second interface redesign in less than a year to make it more like Twitter which has made headway against Facebook because of its realtime updates.

The Facebook layout has changed significantly with one poll — of 800000 users — showing that 94% of them hate it. It seems though this number of users isn’t enough to garner a response from Facebook.

Since the site launched over 175 million users have registered and out of that number 1.7 million are protesting of the site redesign joining the group âPetition against the New Facebookâ requesting that Facebook make smaller changes over a period of time to allow for easier transition.

The newest changes were conducted in an attempt to make the site more competitive with microblogging website Twitter which allows for the real time update of anyone who follows a users account.

The transition has been met with much criticism. Users feel that Facebook is not listening to their wants and needs. Such is the rebellion that a Firefox add-on has been created so that users can easily revert to the old layout.

Even though Facebook seems to have no intent to revert their changes the company has made a statement to the BBC regarding user upset:

“The new Facebook home page is one step in the continued evolution of the site designed to give people more ways to share and filter all types of content such as status updates photos videos notes and more. We are grateful to have 175 million people worldwide using Facebook to connect with the people and things they care about most and we take their feedback very seriously.

“We are listening carefully to what people are saying about the new home page through a variety of channels – including through a popular application built by outside developers on our platform that allows users to vote and express their opinion.

“Also helpful have been the many comments we’re reading on industry blogs the Facebook company blog Mark Zuckerberg’s public profile Facebook user groups and through the link on the Facebook new home page tutorial.

“We encourage people to send us constructive detailed feedback and are committed to using it to inform how we build and improve the site for everyone.”Privately though Zuckerberg is rumoured to have emailed out a memo to employees saying that tech’s most successful companies don’t listen to their customers. Certainly Apple is living proof that companies that repeatedly ignore their customers’ pleas can still be very financially successful.

Meanwhile even though you might not like the new Facebook this video from comedian Julian Smith of his tour of the Facebook headquarters should make you laugh.